Further confirmation came later in the day, first with a call from André and his buddy Guillermo. At Guillermo’s estimate, the rock was worth at least ten thousand dollars, maybe more depending on the clarity of the diamond, and there might even be other gems hidden away inside the kimberlite. Plus the kimberlite had a value of a few hundred bucks just on its own. André had kept the story vague and said we’d found the rock in a box of Nolan’s grandpa’s stuff when we started clearing his house, which wasn’t even a lie.
And while André flew with Storm to San Francisco, Rusty, Nolan, and Jez had found three more “interesting” rocks up on the hill, one in the swimming hole and two on the ground. Nolan had dived into the water, this time wearing his underwear, and I knew that because Jez had taken a picture and sent it to me with a “wow” emoji.
I hadn’t been loafing around while the others worked. No, I’d sent Everett Cranston a menu preview for the AmeriHedge Awards, some bullshit investment dinner that I knew he planned to attend because Antonella had emailed a friend about it. Once he clicked on the link, I had access to his data, including his four email addresses—work, personal, an old one from his college days, and another he seemed to use for his porn subscriptions. Fingers crossed he hadn’t seen Nolan’s dick.
I hit pay dirt with the work address. Everett had been emailing with two potential investors—Bray Perakis, CEO of Elemental Gems, and Anthony Simms, executive VP in charge of exploration at Everbrite Trading—with news of “an exciting new opportunity in the American diamond industry.” He claimed to have a lead on a potential diamond deposit “right here in the United States” that “showed great promise.” And hey, if they didn’t mine commercially, how about a new tourist attraction? Think “Crater of Diamonds State Park meets wine country.” Honestly, I thought Nolan was gonna puke when I showed him the discussion.
“They want to dig up the hill?” he asked. “What about all the wildlife?”
“I doubt the deer have a vacation budget, so…”
“Those motherfuckers.”
That’s the spirit. “On the plus side, they’d probably buy out the Hayes family, so at least you’d solve one problem.”
“They’re not having my land.” I’d never seen Nolan turn that funny shade of red before. Fury was a new thing for him. “They’ll mine diamonds over my dead body.”
“I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem for them.”
“Even if I have to sell everything else I own, I’m not taking their money. I’m certain Grandpa left this place to me because he knew I’d protect it rather than cashing in the moment things got difficult.” He took a steadying breath. “This is a nightmare.”
“No, no, this is the fun part.”
“How? How is this fun?”
Jez spelled it out for him. “Because we know what they’ve done, but they don’t know that we know. Which means we get to fuck with them.”
The colour drained out of his cheeks, and he turned ashen as he glanced at each of us in turn. Ari was there too. Rusty had taken Erin for dinner at Sanguine, and Storm had decided to spend the evening in San Francisco. She’d fly André back in the morning.
“I…I don’t want any more blood on my hands. What they’ve done is sneaky, and underhanded, and Antonella put Ari’s life in danger when she set fire to the cottage, but I don’t think I could sleep at night if fucking with them involved, say, explosives.”
“There won’t be any explosions,” I assured him.
“I just thought that after what happened with the Lelands…”
Jez laughed. “If it was down to me, I’d stuff a frag grenade up Antonella’s yoga-sculpted ass and wait for her to shit out the pin, but Alexa’s taking the lead on this project.”
“Blood isn’t my thing,” I said. “This time, I’m going to play the long game. Believe it or not, I can be super patient when I need to be.”
I was going to annihilate those materialistic assholes, and I was going to do it in the way that would hurt them most. Through money. Stealth too—they wouldn’t know what hit them until it was too late. They thought they were being sneaky when they tried to outmanoeuvre Nolan, but now they were taking on me, and I always played to win.
“So what are we going to do?”
We. My heart skipped when he said that because after all Nolan and I had been through, after all the secrets we’d learned about each other, there was still an “us.”
“We’re going to start by throwing a party.”
CHAPTER 42
ALEXA
First thing in the morning, I called an old acquaintance, and when I said “first thing,” I meant five o’clock. London was eight hours ahead of California, so I figured I’d probably catch him at lunch.
We’d first crossed paths six years ago when we realised we were investigating the same CEO—Jay and I were curious to find out which politicians he was bribing, and Cash was trying to find out just how dirty the company was so he could decide whether or not to invest his clients’ money there, and most likely some of his own as well.
Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds bad, but Cash wasn’t a typical investment banker. No, he was a short seller. One of those sneaky little fuckers who made money when everyone else lost it.
Anyhow, once we realised we had a common aim, though not the same ultimate goal, we saw that working together would give us an advantage. I was able to access data that Cash couldn’t, and he was better at unravelling complex financial transactions than I was. So, we’d formed a tentative alliance. Trust didn’t come easily to either of us, and we’d spent several months dancing around each other as we tested the limits of each other’s morals. Cash would lie when it suited him, and so would I. We kind of understood each other. And in the years since, we’d traded information and favours from time to time when the need arose. A loose friendship had grown between us, and although he could be a smooth-talking jerk at times, at least he had enough self-awareness to admit that.
